No, It's Not Illegal to Photograph a House in Western Australia

This claim is a textbook 'weird law' myth — the kind that circulates endlessly on listicle websites and pub quiz nights without ever being traced back to an actual statute. Australia has relatively permissive photography laws compared to many other countries. Since the landmark 1937 High Court decision in Victoria Park Racing v Taylor (25 CLR 279), Australian law has firmly established that there is no 'freedom from view' — meaning anything visible from a public place can be lawfully photographed. The relevant WA legislation, the Surveillance Devices Act 1998 (WA), prohibits using optical surveillance devices to record 'private activities' without consent — but this applies to things like voyeuristic filming of people in intimate situations, not snapping a picture of a front door from the footpath. There is no 'written consent' requirement anywhere in WA law for photographing buildings. The myth may have originated from a misreading of real estate or commercial photography best practices, where photographers are advised to obtain 'location release forms' from property owners before using images in advertising — but this is a commercial/contractual consideration, not a criminal law. It may also stem from confusion with laws in other countries (France, for example, does have stronger property-image rights) or a garbled understanding of WA's surveillance and privacy landscape. Australia's privacy framework continues to evolve — a statutory tort of serious invasion of privacy was introduced federally in 2025 — but none of these reforms created a blanket ban on photographing houses.